Shakespeare on Film in the Classroom

DOCUMENT RESUME ED 109 682 CS 202 162- AUTHOR Mullin, Michael TITLE Shakespeare on Film in the Classrdom. PUB DATE Nov 74 NOTE 12p.; Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the. National Council of Teachers of English. (64th, New Orleans, Louisiana, November 28-30, 1974); Not available in hard copy due to marginal legibility of original document. EDRS PRICE MF-$0.76 PLUS POSTAGE. HC Not Available from EDRS. DESCRIPTORS *Annotated Bibliographies; Drama; *Films; Higher Education; *Instructional Films; Instructional Media; Secondary Education IDENTIFIERS *Shakespeare (William) ABSTRACT A course at the University of Illinois entitled "Shakespeare on Film" is discussed briefly, and an annotated list of Shakespeare films for the classroom teacher is provided in this paper. Thirteen films are listed: three versions of "Hamlet," "Henry V," "Julius Caesar," four versions of "Macbeth," "A Midsummer Night's Dream," "Othello," "Romeo and Juliet," and "The Taming of the Shrew." Each annotation gives the name of the director, major stars, distributor, year of, production and mode (black and white or color). (TS) Michael Mullin Department of English University of Illinois Urbana, Illinois 61801 SHAKESPEARE ON FILM IN THE CLASSROOM Because Shakespeare wrote for the theatre, his plays come tO fullest life in performance. Yet students in high school and college rarely see the plays performed. Instead, they labor through a knotty text, coming to know the plays as plots and puns, but getting little sense of the sounds and sights latent in the written words. This is a great loss. Worse, such labor for small rewards often leads students to distrust their teacher's enthusiasms, and to dislike Shakespeare. This experience, or one very like it, prejudices many students before they enter Shakespeare classes at the University of Illinois. To overcome this problem, inherent in teaching all drama, we have found a partial solution in Shakespeare on film. Each term The Shakespeare Film Series shows about a dozen films, which form the core of my course "Shakespeare on Film" (English 205 F1), and which supplement a wide range of courses in Shakespeare, film, and theatre. Although help- ful, films raise problems, both practical and pedagogical, which have pre- vented them from receiving the wide use they deserve. By way of a guide, I wish first to outline the practical difficulties of using films to teach Shakespeare, and then to examine briefly the films I have found most in- structive. Unlike books, which one may purchase and keep, films are controlled by distributors who rent copiesat rates determined by the nature of the showing, and this arrangement presents some practical difficulties. To qualify fur non-theatrical, classroom rates (usually $50 to $100 per film), no admission may be charged, dor, to protect commercial cinemas, may the film be advertised in any way. Each 16 mm. film is sent special delivery '(air mail), insured for $200, thus adding about $5 to the rental price. Because film distributers have a limited number of prints, one must order (by telephone, with written confirmation following) well in advance of show- date to be sure the film will be available. How may films be integrated into a course in Shakespeare? The answer will vary, of course, with the needs and interests of each course. In my course, a general introduction to Shakespeare, we study about a dozen plays per term, about one a week, with some plays being studied in several film versions. The plays are always read and discussed before they are seen on film. In a course in which fewer plays were studied, one might show a film of the play first, then study the text, and then return to the same hid (or another of the same play) for a re-evaluation. Indeed, one might struc- ture a semester's work around the differmit interpretations of the play of- fered by three different films--say Hamlet by Olivier, Kozintsev, and Ric- chardson. The possibilities for good teaching are myriad. More important than the mechanics of the course, are the broad questions which arise when film is the performance medium for plays designed for Elizabethan theatre. How does the selective eye of the camera inter- act with the equally selective imagery of the poetic text? How does the play change when film portrays what Shakespeare's actors on their bare stage described? To what extent can one cut the text legitimately in rec- ognition of these different properties of the two media, one visual, the ether verbal? And, ultimately, how true are the interpretations of indi- vidual plays embodied in the films? To be sure, there are no final answers to such questions, for they possess an interpretative richness which makes the plays on film a delight to teach. Yet different films permit one to fo- ens on different issues. One must select the films, and thereby the issues that suit ones course. Because previewing is practically impossible, a guide to the films is necessary to choose those appropriate to specific classroom needs. Below, along with rental information I give a thumbnail sketch of each major Shakespeare film. HAMLET d Laurence Olivier, s. Olvier, Jean Simmons, Basil Sidney, Eileen Berlie. B/W. 1948. United Films, 1122 S. Cheyenne, Tulsa, Uk. 74119. Olivier's film is justly famous. It won five Oscars and the Venice Film Festival Award. As Olivier's voice announces at the opening, he has chosen toas "the tragedy of a man who could not makeinterpret up his the play mind." What might sound like a rather conservative, even Romantic interpretation of the playdoes not, however reveal itself to be so. The ghost pulsates in and out of focus to the pounding beat of Ham- let's heart. The action unfoldsin castle that camerawork renders a a weirdlabyrinth of tunnels, alcoves, and stairways. Gertrude is much closer in age to Hamlet than one expects--add hisjealoUsy of his uncle takes on strange colors. Music underscores the movement with a series of leitmotifs for each character. And locale is given symbolic overtones. The tower to which the Ghost leads Hamlet he returns to when contemplating suicide, and there he is finally laid to rest by Fortinbras's men. This interpretation is provacative, as any must be, and criticshave found much to their dislike. Olivier's shrunken text, his mannered acting, his dabbling in Freudian symbolism--allthese'have raised their ire. Yet all have precedents on the stage and some, we find now, are antecedents of similar speculation by critics and scholars, among them Dover-Wilson and Wilson Knight, to name the most famous. HAMLET, d. Grigori Kozintsev, B/W. 1964. United Artists, UA Sixteen, 759 Seventh Avenue, New York, New York 10022. Russian speech, with subti- tles from the Bad Quarto Hamlet, make this a difficult Hamlet for those who do not know the play well. For those who do, it is a fascinating exploration of the play's imagery through different visual symbols. In his Diaries, Kozintsev himself describes the environment his film eloquently portrays: "The architecture of Elsinore does not consist in walls, but in the ears which the walls have. There are doors, the better to eavesdrop behind, windows, the better to spy from. The walls are made up of guards. Every sound gives birth to echoes, repercussions, whispers, rustling. I have in mind stone, iron, fire, earth, and seal Stone: the walls of Elsi- more, the firmly built government prison, on which armorial bearings and sinister bas-reliefs had been carved centuries ago. Iron: weapons, the in- human forces of oppression, the ugly steel faces of war. Fire: anxiety, revolt, movement the trembling flame of the candles at Claudius's cele- brations; raging fiery tongues; the windblown lamps on the stage erected for 'The Mousetrap.' Sea: waves, crashing against the bastions, ceaseless movement, the change the of tides, the boiling of chaos, and again the silent, endless surface of glass. Earth: the world beyond Elsinore, amid stones--a bit of field tilled by a ploughman, the sand pouring out of Yorick's skull, and the handfull of dust in the palm of the wanderer-heir to the throne of Denmark." (C.K.', Shakespeare: Time and Conscience, Lon- don:. 1967; 225, 266). HAMLET. d. Tony Richardson, s. Nicol Williamson, Marianne Faith- full.Color. ,1969. Visual Aides Service, University of Illinois, 1325 S. Oak, Champaign, Il. 61820. Richardson's Hamlet is easily the most exci- ting and most approachable version of the play on film. Rich costumes delight the eye. Swift-paced camerawork, nearly always in closeup, keep the point of view fluid, so that, as in the nunnery scene, we keep moving a- round Hamlet. There, we first see Ophelia through Hamlet's eye's as she lies in dishabille on a hammock, and then, abruptly shifting, we look through the eyes of Polonius and Claudius, who stand behind a tapestry peering at the couple. Although point of view changes, characterizations are clear- cut: Hamlet, a post-graduate student, finds himself called away from his studies. Horatio is donnish.' Ophelia, played by Marianne Faithfull of Rolling Stones fame, is a wanton--she laughs when her brother speaks of her "chaste treasure" and she is all the more hurt by Hamlet's rejection because she has already accepted him as a lover. Claudius is a bloat debau- chce, a mighty drinker before the Lord„but short on the cunning we usually attribute to him. For cunning, Richardson gives us a shrewd Polonius. Despite warrant in the text for what Richardson does, many critics felt that, as Williamson's rough twang betrayed the verse to reach emotions with- in it, Richardson betrayed the play to make a stunning, anti-heroic film.

Load more